The Indus River is the longest river in the South Asian subcontinent, with a total length of 3,200 km. It originated in the Himalayas, flowed from north to southwest, flowing mainly through the territory of present-day Pakistan, and finally into the Arabian Sea. Because the soil contains mineral silt, it is very fertile and suitable for agriculture. There are stone and metal ores nearby, and there are many kinds of wildlife. In addition, waterways are accessible in all directions and are easily transported. All this provided favorable conditions for the emergence of Harappan culture.
Prior to the rise of the Haraba culture, there was a culture of transition to cities in and around the Indus Valley in and around Balochistan and Afghanistan. They have gone through roughly three stages: the first stage was before 3000 BC, the neolithic stage of pre-pottery, and then there was pottery and bronze ware, and sheep and cattle were domesticated, and they lived a nomadic life;
The second stage is 3000 BC - 2700 BC, the increase of bronze and the emergence of bronze, the management of agriculture and animal husbandry, settled life, the appearance of potter marks, indicating the beginning of writing;
The third stage, which began in 2700 BC, had the prototype of the city, the layout of the castle and the outer city, the neatly arranged streets and houses, and the appearance of brick-burning gutters. Some areas of the pre-Haraba culture seem to have been peacefully replaced by the Harappans or destroyed by them;
The pre-Haraba culture is closely related to neighboring contemporaries of Iran, and the smelting of copper was transmitted from Iran to Afghanistan and Baloch. The Haraba culture has many similarities with the Sumerian culture of West Asia. Therefore, some scholars believe that the harappan culture originated in West Asia, especially Iran (Fairseves, Pigott, etc.), and some even believe that the Haraba culture was imported from the Sumerian diaspora (Wardle, Pujan Nath). But the cultural sites excavated above have amply demonstrated that this culture was developed on the basis of local culture, although there were some external influences. The question of who is the creator of this culture is at stake here.
Based on an analysis of the remains of 11 human bodies excavated at Mohenjo Daro, Hugher and Guha believe that there are four types: Proto-Australian, Mediterranean, Mongol, and Alpine. Later excavations increased (260 in Haraba, 41 in Mohenjo Dhara, 2 in Rotar, 3 in Karibang). According to Sakar's research, in terms of head index, the Mohenyo Daro people and today's Sindhi, Haraba and today's Punjabis, Rotar and today's Gujarat are very similar, indicating that they were native. However, due to the broken bones, there are too few statues that can provide ethnographic information to confirm the ethnicity of the inhabitants. Most scholars believe that the creators of this culture were the Dravidians, and possibly the Proto-Australians, Mongols, etc. By the middle of 3000 BC, the Haraba culture had entered the Bronze Age, and its heyday began. They knew about melting ore, forging, casting and welding metal tools, and metallurgy had developed somewhat.
They may manufacture copper-tin alloys or copper arsenic alloys, i.e. bronze, in a certain proportion. The use of Vishnu's golden statue bronze or bronze to make production and living utensils, weapons, etc. Such as axes, chisels, fish hooks, knives, spearheads, arrows, bowls, plates, mirrors, rings, small copper car models, etc.
Due to the lack of tin, bronze was more valuable and stone tools were still in use. There has been a great deal of socio-economic development. The inhabitants were mainly engaged in agriculture, using bronze pickaxes and sickles, and possibly also ploughing fields with wooden plows, toothed rakes and stone chisels. They also used water cattle and cattle as farming animals. As the Indus River often floods, in the struggle against floods, people have learned to build dikes and divert water for irrigation, and also made water pumps to deliver water to high places. The main crops are barley, wheat, rice, peas, melon, dates, cotton and flax. Animal husbandry also occupies an important place in the economy.
In the handicraft industry, in addition to metallurgy and grain processing, there are also cotton, wool textile, embroidery, dyeing and so on. Pottery was an important handicraft sector, in addition to jewelry manufacturing and ivory craftsmanship. As material wealth increased, so did commerce. Cotton, spices, wood, jewelry, etc. native to the Indus Valley were exported to West Asia and other places; many of the handicrafts they made were made from neighboring regions and beyond the Indian subcontinent.
Vehicles and cattle and camels are used for transport by land, and there are boats on the waterways. The need for production and exchange forms a system of weights and measures. Measure the length with a shell ruler and a bronze rod ruler. Unit length, the former is 0.67 cm and the latter is 0.9 cm. All are decimal. Weight is measured by weights and is 0.875 grams per unit. The purchase and sale of precious pearls and jades is carried out with small weights and two-position systems; non-valuable items are traded with large weights and decimal places.
Social interaction, including the increase in commercial exchange, led to the emergence of writings that recorded language, and the writing of the Harappan culture was mostly engraved on seals made of stone or clay (seal script). Some seals may have been used commercially, such as indian cotton fabrics found in the southern city of Wenma in the southern part of the Two Rivers Valley, which may have been used as a mark of the manufacturer. According to statistics, there are 417 text symbols (some scholars believe that the basic symbols are 26), which are generally composed of straight lines and clear fonts. Since some symbols depict people, birds, fish, etc., some scholars believe that they are hieroglyphs. However, the later seal text found by Rotar has been simplified, the basic symbols are only 22, the graphics have disappeared, some symbols are added with short strokes that may indicate accents, and some two symbols are written consecutively, which is generally considered to be a transitional phonetic script to alphabetic characters.
The number of inscriptions on seals, pottery and metal ware is very small, generally five or six symbols, the maximum is 26, and the writing is from right to left. This text has not yet been interpreted. The question of contention is exactly what language this writing is written in. It has to do with who is the creator of this culture. Some think it is a Dravidian language family (Marshall, Heras, etc.), while others think it is an Indo-European language family (Hrozni, Rao, etc.). In recent years, attempts have been made to interpret such texts (Pappola, Knorozov, Mahadei, etc.) using electronic computers. Some researchers claim to have read it successfully, but it has not yet been recognized.
Socio-economic development, which promotes the dense population of the central area of transportation, forms a city. Cities vary in size. Haraba and Mohenjo Dhara are two important centers of this culture and the two largest cities. Each covers an area of 850,000 square meters, with a population of 30,000 or 40,000 people each. The later development of Rotal is 47,500 square meters and has a population of only 2,000 to 2,500 people. The stone temples of the Gupta period have certain plans for the architecture of these cities.
The layout of the city is generally divided into two parts: the castle in the west and the lower city in the east. The castle is in a parallelogram surrounded by thick walls built on a mud brick foundation. The walls had square bastions and towers at intervals, and there was a moat outside the city. The lower town is larger and the terrain is lower. The Castle District is an administrative center with a number of public buildings. The lower town is a commercial and residential area with shops, handicraft workshops, restaurants, hostels and general housing. There are cemeteries near residential areas.
Urban traffic consists of streets intersecting at right angles, some up to 10 or 11 meters wide and 0.8 km long. These streets divide the city into square or rectangular blocks, some of which are crossed by alleys, some of which are only 2.3 meters wide. The streets are lined with houses, and buildings cannot encroach on the street floor. To facilitate traffic, at the bend in the crossroads, the corners of the houses are built in a circle. In order to avoid the sharp turn of the vehicle and damage the street corner house, wooden stake protection was set up.
On the street, there are street light poles at regular intervals that can be illuminated. The wide street can walk nine large cars side by side, which shows that there were many vehicles and pedestrians in the city at that time. It is indeed a scene of prosperity! The Shiva urban plan also includes a well-developed water supply and drainage system. There are wells for the water supply, and almost every house has its own well. Each laneway has a public well. Drainage ditches, each household has a branch ditch to communicate with the main ditch, the upstairs sewage through the vertical water pipe to the underground ditch. Rainwater and sewage flow through ditches and eventually into large rivers. The bottom of the pool and the surrounding area are paved with asphalt about 2 cm thick between the brick walls to prevent water leakage. The smallest of the houses has two rooms, and the pottery workshop is located outside the city to avoid the soot pollution of the kiln. During this period, there was already a phenomenon of wealth differentiation and class antagonism.
From the ruins, you can see that some are high-rise buildings with spacious courtyards and well-equipped; some are small, simple and crowded huts. Among ornaments, funerary objects, and even children's toys, there are exquisite items of gold and jade jewelry; there are also shoddy objects made of clay and shells. The gap between the rich and the poor is very large.
The development and change of human culture, after continuous baptism, and finally step by step towards a more advanced civilized society, the emergence of Haraba culture has promoted the development and prosperity of the Indus civilization, all of which reflect the process of tribal merger and unification at the end of the primitive society. After entering the class society, the scene of class rule and rebellion is vividly remembered, and the emergence of the city has raised the human civilization to a higher level. Human society must also become more and more civilized, more prosperous and stronger.
bibliography:
History of the Rise and Fall of World Empires
The Empire of Acre
A General History of the World